Patrick Lin, who is Assistant Professor and Director of Ethics and Emerging Science Group at California Polytechnic State University, penned  a thought provoking piece titled ‘Stand Your Cybergound’ Law: A Novel Proposal for Digital Security in The Atlantic magazine in which he offers up a proposal allowing private industry to conduct cyber retaliation against foreign attackers. He rightly points out that a majority of cyber attacks against the United States or its interests are against private companies. It was reported just this week that the Department of Homeland Security  has sent out several alerts warning of a “gas pipeline sector cyber intrusion campaign” against multiple companies, which began earlier this year and is still under way. The face that companies are expected to fend for themselves is huge vulnerability in our national cyber defense. The Department of Defense protects military networks. The Department of Homeland Security defends other federal government networks. And everyone else is basically left to stand or fall on its own. It is the case  that there have been increased collaboration  between the public and private sectors in recent years. And the policy makers are looking at additional means for increased information sharing and collaboration. The  proposed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is one such effort. But if private company  is under attack, there is no calvary coming. Couple this with the fact that approximately 85% of the US critical infrastructure is owned and operated by private industry. It would take more that information sharing to adequately implement an effective national cyber defense. Our current cyber defense  is  mostly dependent on private for-profit companies making business decisions about how much to spend on their security overhead. That is certainly a recipe for disaster. It is imperative that government, business and academia join forces and develop better options for addressing this issue. Read More...